Hi, We have multi-language websites targeting different countries. We need the local user to find our local website, instead of main site, in local Google search. So we just followed Google's instruction of using rel="alternate" hreflang="x", https://support.google.com/webmaster...r/189077?hl=en, for this purpose. We have placed the following example codes in the <head> section in our main, UK and Belgium sites for more than 3 weeks, but our main site still ranks higher than our local site in local Google search result. <link rel="alternate" href="OurDomain dot com" hreflang="en" /> <link rel="alternate" href="uk.OurDomain dot com" hreflang="en-gb" /> <link rel="alternate" href="be.OurDomain dot com" hreflang="en-be" /> Did we do anything wrong for the above codes ? We placed the above codes in most of web pages in our sites but not every page. Could this be the problem ? Thank you.
Ok am I correct here you have 3 web sites. 1 is global, 1 is for UK people and 1 for Belgium? You would like your web site for the UK to rank above the global web site correct? When you did your search how did you conduct it? Did you define local search parameters just for UK or Belgium? Is the computer you were searching on set to the area you required the result from in the control panel. This might sound daft but it can affect search results for different country results. I do a lot of work in the US and I have had to dedicate a computer to US settings to get the correct search results for some reason. Ideally you should have used country specific domain extensions which would have helped also. Another point is the SEO work you have done to all sites will affect ranking as you know. Did all sites receive the same love and attention? Let me know what you find out I would like to try to help you solve the problem.